I am trying to get my French bank to update my address in my online profile.

I sent them a bill as proof of address:

(name, house number and street name obscured for privacy)

They did make the change, in a manner of speaking:

(name obscured for privacy)

As you can see, they left out the house number, street name and postcode. Plus a misspelling in the town name. Who cares whether I receive their letters or not? Serves me right for living abroad in the first place!

The French antipathy for anything English is not a myth… they can be seriously passive-aggressive about it too.

Incidentally, this is the same bank that did not allow me to make a deposit (not a withdrawal) from a random branch in Normandy a couple of years ago, because my branch is in Picardy. Apparently this bank, despite having a national presence, is run on a strictly regional basis.

I did tell the employee: “Are you aware this is the 21st century?” and got a superb Gallic shrug in return.

Some years ago, a female orang-utan was rescued from a Borneo prostitute village where she was being used as a novelty sex slave.

The worst thing is, the villagers probably captured another baby female to replace her as soon as the rescuers left. Let’s not even talk about the fact that ‘prostitute villages’ even exist or that men would pay to have sex with a shaved orang-utan.

Meanwhile, everyone’s up in arms because Donald Trump said something about shithole countries… well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, isn’t it?

A French charity is collecting material donations for the migrants in Calais. Their list of urgently needed items includes unlocked mobile phones and their chargers and clothes and shoes in men’s sizes. I think that says a lot…

If you look at the complete list in French, they even specify boxers – not briefs – and trainers – preferably black. They are not interested in toys or children’s clothing as they have “too many”. There’s also a small list of women’s items but it hasn’t been translated into English (unlike the men’s items) so clearly isn’t a priority.

So my question is: where do the Guardian find those children and families who are supposedly living rough in Calais and whose pictures they keep taking to illustrate their many articles?

Oh, and apparently some Lycamobile Sim cards and fire extinguishers would be welcome too. You know, the kind of thing you just have lying around.

Meanwhile, the food list includes smoked paprika, olive oil, fresh chillies, honey, Cayenne pepper (in addition to regular pepper), tahini and Indian saffron (!!!). These are some seriously well-fed migrants. Will Jay Rayner be reviewing the Calais Canteen, I wonder?

Donation suggestion (but don’t forget to cover up the word ‘Christmas’ on the pudding label)

This Guardian article on the history of the sandwich industry in the UK is very interesting, but I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at the journalist happily peddling the unexamined official narrative on Brexit making everyone bankrupt in the foreseeable future, from factory owners to the NHS (Britain Relies On Immigrants™).

In the main production hall, which had a red floor and a thrumming air supply – keeping the temperature a steady 10C – a couple of hundred workers lined seven conveyor belts. Chahar took me to the middle of the room, where around a dozen women were making one of Adelie’s newest lines, a chicken tikka and onion bhaji sandwich, which is popular among students. The belt was going at about 33 sandwiches a minute, so the woman at each stage – arranging the 40g of chicken, dolloping and spreading out the bhaji paste, sprinkling on 3g of coriander – got less than two seconds before they went past.

Standing at a conveyor belt in 10 degrees Celsius, repeatedly putting stuff on a new slice of bread every 1½ seconds. In other words, living the dream.

I thought it sounded familiar…

Over the years, Chahar has tried to get unemployed British people to join his sandwich lines. “They come here. They do half day. They never come back,” he told me. (Adelie has also made similar, largely unsuccessful attempts with ex-convicts.) The work is too cold, and too repetitive. Pay at the Wembley factory starts at £7.50 an hour. As a result, most sandwich factories have relied on immigrant labour for at least a decade

Well, my good man, I’m not sure how to put it to you but if the only people who are prepared to do a particular job are poor immigrants desperate for money… maybe, just maybe, there is something wrong with the job.

Can anybody tell me what’s wrong with this picture? Anybody? Anybody at all?

I see dead pickles

For Chahar, who dreams of introducing the sandwich to Algeria, it is a baffling situation. “The British people needs to get into this job. It is the sandwich,” he said. “They should be proud.”

The man is delusional. How is doing a mind-numbing job for peanuts something to be proud of? Of course the Brits never come back! Why on earth would they agree to work in Third World conditions in their own country? I don’t see the journalist resigning from the Guardian on the spot and demanding a hairnet and a pair of white wellies!

Miss! He’s crushing my lettuce!

“Brexit has fucked everything up,” one chief executive, whose firm relies heavily on eastern European labour, told me. “On the day after the vote, on that Friday, people are walking up to me and saying, ‘Do I go home now?’ These are the people who dug us out of a hole when the indigenous population failed.”

Yeah but no. The indigenous population didn’t fail, it’s just not interested in being exploited and undercut by Eastern Europeans. This has nothing to do with laziness, just common sense.

Try paying a living wage, Mr Chief Executive, and watch the Brits come back in their droves. And by living wage, I mean a salary which allows people to have a decent lifestyle in the UK, not just sleep on a mattress in a house shared with 20 other guys, eat tinned food and send all your money back to Hungary.

Today is the 155th anniversary of the publication of Les Misérables, my favourite French novel ever. Champagne!

Looks like ladettes are a thing in France too

Now, it’s nice of the Independent to write a little article about Victor Hugo but a bit of research and accuracy would have helped.

Born in 1802, three-years after Napoleon seized power, he was already famous as a poet, artist and novelist by the time he was 30 and he had had time to study law.

A fierce critic of Napoleon, Hugo fled France after the 1851 coup d’etat that brought Bonaparte to power.

Is it me or do they make it sound like it’s the same Napoléon seizing power twice within a fifty-year period? Is the Independent even aware there were two? (well, technically three).

The one in the second quote is of course Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Napoléon I’s nephew who became the second Emperor of the French. The first Napoléon was long dead by then.

They both liked their horsey rides though

After spells in Belgium and Jersey he settled in the smaller Channel Island of Guernsey, where the writer would live for the next 15 years.

It proved to be one of the most productive periods of his life, as Hugo penned his two most celebrated volumes of poetry and most of Les Miserables – which he began in the 1845 but did not complete until 1862.

It means arguably the most famous work of French literature was actually written in Britain.

Guernsey is not part of Britain, in fact it’s not even in the UK. It’s a Crown Dependency.

[Albanian accent] Good luck.[/Albanian accent]

I suppose I should count my blessings: at least the article doesn’t say Les Mis is set during the French Revolution (yes, I have read this. More than once).

So, for the second year in a row, the best actress they could find just happens to be black (and her daughter must therefore be black as well). Meanwhile, the best actors for all the other parts just happen to be white – again. Do the production people actually take us for complete idiots?

I do wish Rowling had been honest about her intentions. If she had just said: “Look, I didn’t think about it at the time but I actually regret the lack of diversity in the Trio; it makes more sense to me that at least one of them isn’t white and Hermione is the perfect candidate. It brings balance to the Force to the story and quite frankly, anything that can empower black girls is a good thing”, I’m pretty sure the vast majority of fans would have accepted this and understood her reasoning. Instead she lied through her teeth because she couldn’t bring herself to own her decision.

I have a feeling this is the main reason for the backlash, not racism as she was so keen to proclaim; people know when they’re having the wool pulled over their eyes. Rowling was far, far too defensive about it even to fans who only wanted to calmly explain how they felt (see the tweet above). Her complete refusal to admit that this huge change after all these years (and all these films) suddenly turned everything upside-down and greatly affected how fans related to the character was incredibly off-putting.

I’m sure the official narrative for casting another black actress is “continuity”. Hahaha. Maybe Rachel Dolezal should have played Hermione in the films!